Lost
by Lady Tragic
Summary: So there was this kid left in the middle of the docks...
1. Part I: The Kid

**Author's Note: **I had an idea for a much longer Star Wars fic, but I thought I'd write a short story introducing my OC first, before I bit off more than I could chew. R&R _very_ very much appriciated.

**Disclaimer:** Insert witty 'it's not mine' statement here. Except Ankerra, who is mine, and you have to ask her mommy if you want to play with her.

**Nar Shaddaa, near the end of the Jedi Civil War**

In the couple weeks he'd been here, it had become something of a ritual for him to do down to the docks and watch the refugee ships unload. The daily black parade of lost souls was a sort of grim comfort, a reaffirmation that he was _glad_ to have washed his hands of that whole damn mess.

He'd heard that some backwater farm world called Dantooine had been razed, so he could guess where at least some of these were coming from, but otherwise he made no effort to guess. He lingered on this lost looking young woman, or that married couple or that older woman with a handful of children clinging to her. _Don't get too attatched. They won't last._ Faces blurred, and people clumped into groups of family, friends, or even enemies- anyone familiar. As they slowly moved into the cleared out area where the refugees gathered, they glanced about waryily. He snorted derisively. If they were the farmers they looked, they'd probably never seen so many buildings. They wouldn't last, none of them. They'd been relegated to the bottom of the Nar Shaddaa food chain with no way of climbing it. People worse off than even himself, and he gained a petty satisfaction from watching them struggle. The last of them skittered into the sewers, most likely to die, prey for a world of predators.

Except one. Some kid clutching a stuffed bantha, left alone on the landing platform, those she'd come with and the ship that brought her long gone. She had a stubborn look, as though this was far from the first time the galaxy had dropped her in a ditch and said "Deal with it". She couldn't have been more than ten, a solid blonde scrap with a spattering of freckles and clothing that was far too large. Before he realized what he was doing, he was walking over to the runt. She was the first person who stepped off of any one of those daily transports who had a snowballs chance in hell of making it here, and he wasn't going to let one of the zillion _other_ pieces of scum in this place break that chance. "You _lost_, kid?" He drawled with a smirk.

She started, clutched her stuffed toy protectively, and he had the fleeting impression of some kind of predator cub. With the look she gave him he almost expected a growl. _Sorry darlin', but you haven't got your grown up teeth yet._ Then she spoke, and it became suddenly apparent why the other refugees avoided her. "What makes you think so?" she snapped with a heavy Mandalorian accent. _Guess that explains the overdeveloped attitude._

"Well... we can start with the fact that you got kicked off that transport twenty solid minutes ago, and you're still standing here." She shifted and turned pink. "Seriously, kid, what's a girl like you doing in a nice place like this? And all by your lonesome, too." The cliches got a quirk that might have thought about becoming a smile someday.

"Mercs." She said quietly. "Where do the mercs go?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a bit young for that kind of work?"

Another almost-smile. "Maybe. But if any of my kind are here, that's where they'll be."

Atton nodded, that made sense. "There's a couple Mandalorians who hang in a cantina near hear. I'll take you there."

"Why?"

He paused. Truth was he didn't have a damn clue. "I've got a good feeling about you, kid." Eh, that was close enough.

She looked at him distrustfully, as she was right to. He jerked his head in invitation, and started to walk away. The girl wavered, and trotted after him, one hand on her belt knife and the bantha tucked securely under her arm.

The walk to the cantina was short. He said nothing, she said nothing. He got some funny looks walking into a bar with a little kid carrying a stuffed animal, but no one said anything. The Mandalorians he was used to seeing weren't there yet- they normally arrived evenings. "What's your name, kid?"

"What's yours?" She said defensively.

He chuckled, then stopped cold. Not once since he'd come here had he given a name. He didn't like his old one, and few people asked. "Rand. Atton Rand." He said, making something up on the spot.

"Ankerra Ordo."

They sat, and a long silence followed, until 'Atton' inquired "I gotta ask... Aren't you a bit big to be toting that thing around?", indicating the toy bantha with a jerk of his head. She glared and clutched the ratty thing protectively.

"It... well, it's lucky." she said sheepishly.

Atton gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile but looked more like a bitter smirk. "What makes you think it's lucky?"

She looked sullen. "It's survived two planetary sieges, that's what." she said, as matter-of-factly as though she were talking about the weather. "Magrus 7 and Dantooine."

What the hell did you say when a little kid talks about surviving planetary bombardments? "I didn't know there were any Mandos on Dantooine. I heard it was a farm world."

She fiddled with her bantha absently. "Some... but not my clan. They're just bandits." She paused, and for a moment she was the sorriest sight he'd ever seen. "I haven't seen any of my family since the last war. Mama died and I dunno what happened to my father. He's the one who gave me Eluis, before he left. I got lost and some Rep soldiers found me and I never saw 'em again."

"I'm sorry."

Suddenly she was all the little soldier again, and shrugged. "It was war. People get lost, and people die." It seemed so wrong to hear that, though true it was, from a ten-year-old girl.

There was another long awkward silence, until Atton drew out his pazaak deck.

"You know how to play pazaak, kid? Here, I'll teach you. We have time." He said when she shook her head no.

That killed about an hour, until the mercenaries they'd been waiting for clattered in. Just then Atton realized he hadn't a damn clue what to say to them. But when he turned back towards Ankerra, it seemed she'd taken care of the problem herself. She was chattering with them in Mandalorian, which he didn't understand a word of. He caught 'Ordo' once or twice, but that was it. The little girl's face fell, and for a moment he was afraid he was going to get stuck with the runt. Then the bigger of the two Mandolorians looked at him, and said in Basic 

"I know her father from way back. I'll look after her."

Atton nodded, and that was the end of it. He walked out of the bar, and didn't really give another thought to the lost Mandalorian girl. Except that now, he had a new name.

**End Part I**


	2. Part II: The Merc

**Author's Note: **Vor entye bah HanuuEshe, my one and only reviewer

**Disclaimer: **Guess what, I bought Star Wars! beat No, wait, still not mine.

**Nar Shaadda, 7 years later (2 years after the departure of the Exile)**

Lifetimes passed. Atton Rand got in trouble, met a girl, got in some more trouble, helped save the galaxy, and lost the girl (at least temporarily). And wound up a Jedi, if you can beleive it. And yet, here he was, on the same sinkhole planet where it seemed like he'd spent half his disreputable existance, being chased by the exact kind of scum whose ire he would have incurred as a card shark.

It had been meant to be a quiet chat in a cantina, an exchange of information with a couple of Mandalorian mercenaries about some two-bit crime lord trying to patch the Exchange back together. Part of the Big Jedi Plan to look like they were actually being useful. The two big guys did most of the talking, but the smallest (though still rather tall) of the three, female by her voice, had said some things that made him think she'd been the one who got the information. He hadn't even gotten their names (He'd been thinking of them as Red, Blue, and Grey, for the colors of their armor), nor given his, and it should have been a blue milk run. Then the Ubese showed up. Maybe this mob boss upstart sent them, or maybe they'd just somehow caught wind that there was a Jedi about, it didn't matter. They tromped into the bar like they owned the place, led by some bigshot in a mask.

The sudden sense of hostility and wrongness he felt gave him time to draw his lightsaber and drop into a defenive stance. The Mandalorians were not so fast. Red and Blue dropped like stones as the Ubese opened fire on the table, dead before they could so much as draw their pistols. Grey was quicker, and got off a pair shots before she collapsed on the floor. Down but not out, he suspected. He caught a shot at a lucky angle with his blade, and the ricochet hit one of the Ubese in the throat.

One, two, three, four, five of them on their terms. He didn't like those odds, so he changed them. A flick of his mind upturned the table onto them, and he bolted for the door. As much as he'd like to teach them a lesson, that wasn't his number one priority. Getting out of here with those datacards was. He clicked the comlink three times as her ran out into the night, the signal for Mira fire up the engines, _now_.

He slowed briefly once he was out of sight, just long enough to open his mind and _reach_, trying to find his pursuers. And to his surprise, sensed someone else doing the same thing. A searching presence... _No one here but us rats._ he thought, and it seemed to pass him by. He just barely dared hope that he'd lost them when several blaster bolts streaked by his head. He ducked around a corner, attempting to shake them in the schutta's maze that was Nar Shaadda. Someone screamed. Atton winced, hoping some innocent hadn't been hit. That scream was followed by another, and he turned down another alleyway-

And hit a dead end. Atton whirled around, bringing his blue double-saber up between him and his pursuers. Hadn't there been five before? Three stood before him now, the leader, flanked by the two remaining Ubese. He looked at the leader, and suddenly felt colder than he had in a long time. Any doubts he had about this being premeditiated were banished. The scarf that hid his face was oddly reminiscent of a Sith assassin's garb, and his cloak was definitely not standard mercinary's attire. There was an air of darkness about him, as threatening and unsubtle as a brandished vibroblade. No one moved. A silence hung in the air like the deep breath one takes before plunging into ice water. It was broken by the tramp of booted feet as an armored figure clattered into the alley.

It was Grey, staggering as much as she ran. The armor on her side was burned through and she was bleeding. She'd ditched the helmet, and proved to be a sturdy blonde still in her teens, short hair pasted to her head with sweat. Anger and pain rolled off her so thick he could taste it. She was not bound by the spell that had held them, and brought a double-ended vibroblade down on one of the Ubese without hesitation. She turned her attentions to the second, and the masked man charged at Atton.

He weilded his heavy, exotic blade with cold precision, and twice Atton only just managed to divert serious blows into wicked scratches. Not that it truly mattered- the cruel blade had been poisoned, and he could feel it working. There! An opening. He brought his shining blade down on his shoulder, and the assailent crumpled like a rag doll. Atton slumped, focusing to rid himself of the poison, when he heard the whine of a blaster charging a shot.

Grey pointed a pistol at him with shaking hands. She fought a losing battle with her tears, her face twisted in anguish.

"That man killed my father." she said, her voice breaking. "I wanted very much to kill him." The muzzle of the blaster dipped, then she brought it back up. "Guess I'll settle for you, Jedi. You got us into this. Those men... those shots were meant for you."

Atton reflected that it would be fairly typical of the universe, to let him survive this long and then have him get shot by a grief-crazy Mandalorian teenager in a back alley. "Listen. Just... just calm down." he said in his best soothing voice. (Which admittedly wasn't very good- this really wasn't his department.) He reached out, trying to get a feel for her. Pain, grief, anger, loss, and a horrible familiarity with all four...

She flinched, as though he'd physically struck her. Huh. A Mandalorian Force Sensitive. That was a new one on him. The girl straightened, her chin went up in an expression that was stubbornness incarnate, and she seemed to compose herself. He had the damndest feeling he'd met her before. Here on Nar Shaadda? Maybe. "I'm not a murderer, and you're not the man I came here to kill." She said curtly. She looked at him, and he saw a flash of... recognition? "I was out of line, Master..."

"Rand." He responded reflexively. The girl looked like she'd seen a ghost, and she turned to walk away. Something clicked in Atton's brain. A lost little blonde girl with a stuffed toy in the middle of the Smuggler's Moon, all those years ago...

"You- the kid with the bantha, right? Six- no, seven years ago?" What was her name- Anna, Anica... An-something.

She paused, then continued her exit. "Yeah."

"You're Force Sensitive." He said suddenly, stopping her in her tracks. "Come to the Temple on Coruscant. You could be trained." When he saw her face, he was surprised to see that she was not. She looked resigned, as though she'd heard this all before.

"I don't think so. I'd make a terrible Jedi."

"Doesn't everyone." No response. "Where will you go?"

She responded with a shrug. "Kid-" he groped for her name "Ankerra? You're _lost._"

That got him a look of proud defiance. "What the hell makes you think so?"

She strode off into the Nar Shaaddan night. Atton did not follow, only watched her go. He hailed Mira on the comlink to tell her just how badly things had gone wrong, and tried not to think about the Mandalorian girl.


	3. Interlude

**Author's Note: **It doesn't go at the end of the last chapter, the start of the next, and it's to short to be one of it's own. So I'll call it an interlude.

**Disclaimer:** What do you think?

**One Week Afterwards**

Later, Ankerra would swear to anything you liked that she had no idea where she'd been for the next few days. She remembered dragging the bodies of her adopted father and brother to a less than respectable crematorium (the proprietor had been very surprised to hear she wanted urns, when most of hs customers wanted the ashes scattered so thoroughly no one could identify them). She remembered finding a pilot to ship the urns and their armor to Racin'rang on Mandalore for far more than the distance warranted. She remembered calling 'home' and telling her uncle that her Jaris and Kas Skirata were dead. And then... she had no idea. A Rodian arms dealer said he'd seen her on the docks and assumed she was on spice, a couple of two bit thugs gave her looks suggesting she'd done something to scare the _osik_ out of them. All she could think of was the fact that the world seemed too damn loud, and suddenly she was walking into the cantina. The place looked like to had never been shot up- it certianly wasn't the first time it had made a quick recovery. She sat down and ordered three shots of Corellian whiskey, just like usual. Someone brought the drinks, and Daasi, the Twi'lek waitress Kas had flirted with incessantly, tapped her on the shoulder and said she was sorry.

Ankerra looked at the glass in front of her, and the two she'd set across from her, and then it hit her. She was waiting for them. Waiting for them to walk in and take their drinks and talk about the next job. A lead weight dropped into her stomach as she finally, truly realized they weren't coming. Her head began to throb, and she realized she hadn't so much as disinfected the graze on her ribs she'd aquired a week ago. Why was she still sitting here anyway? She had things to do. She was damn lucky her side hadn't festered, this armor needed repairs like a fish needed water (and she had _no_ idea what had happened to her helmet). _And,_ she thought, viewing her surroundings with renewed distaste, _I need to get off this planet._ Nar Shaadda was a oozing sore on a distasteful portion of the galactic anatomy, and nothing good had ever come from her being here.

She dropped a few credits on the table and walked out without touching her drink. She lingered for a moment in the rain, mentally planning a new course.

"You know," she said to no one in particular "I should look up Tam. Haven't seen him in an age."

When things fell apart, you packed up your gear and moved on. Ankerra Ordo was used to it by now.


	4. Part III: The Mechanic

**Author's Note: **_Ky'ram teh Tar _actually translates as Death from the Skies. I couldn't find the word for wings. All made up swear words are canon Star Wars slang. I'd meant for this story to be 3 chapters, but I think I can guarantee it will only be 6, counting the little interlude. And this is the only sobbity one.

**Disclaimer:** Still not mine. Seriously.

**Concord Dawn, One week later**

It was a backwater nowhere in the Mid Rim, and Ankerra Ordo couldn't imagine what had brought her brother here. It was pleasant enough, she supposed, especially after Nar Shaadda, a world full of fresh air and sunshine and wide open spaces. The hired shuttle that had brought her departed as soon as she was clear, glad to see the back of her. She slung her bag, stuffed with her armor and other necessities, over one shoulder and tucked her helmet (regained through aggressive negotiations with a salvage merchant) under her arm, and looked for some sign of where to go from here. A crooked grin found it's way on to her face as she spotted a very familiar vessel sitting in the clearing that served as a makeshift landing zone. She spied a woman at the edge of the area, apparently curious about the new arrival.

"Oy! You there!" She called, approaching the woman, a plump and matronly sort with dark braided hair. "Do you know where I can find Tam Skirata?" She looked at her blankly "Tall, lean guy, brown hair. I think he works as a mechanic." Ankerra supplied. That got recognition. 

"You're looking for the Mandalorian? You know, I'd forgotten his right name. " The woman replied in an accent not unlike Ankerra's own. She glanced down and to the right, and Ankerra followed her gaze to the helmet under her arm. "What's your business with him, anyhow?" she inquired warily, placing her hands on her hips in a gesture of quiet disapproval. 

"Nothing unfriendly. Tam's my brother." 

"Hmph. Mando runs his shop on the other side of town, just keep walking down that main street and you can't miss it." 

Ankerra left with the vague impression that she'd just faced an inspection and only barely passed muster. As it turned out, there wasn't much town to go through. Concord Dawn was a spread out farm world, not unlike Dantooine. She found the place, unmarked by any sign other than the sound of machinery. An open-front shop occupied by a strange and familiar droid, and a very familiar young man with his back turned to her, totally oblivious to her presence. She watched him as he bent over some unidentifiable bit of engine, intent on dissecting it. A wicked grin spread across Ankerra's broad features. She shouldn't. It would be childish, and silly, and stupid. And fun, dammit. Quiet as a ranat, she set down her bag and launched herself at her brother in a flying tackle, feverently hoping he wasn't holding anything more dangerous than a hydrospanner.

Plasma torch. Whoops. Fortunately, he dropped it as he collapsed gracelessly under Ankerra's weight.

" You let your guard down, ner vod!" she cheerfully informed Tam, as she she pinned him with his arms behind his back.

"Can't... breathe..." he gasped, and Ankerra obligingly let him up. "Hello, 'Kerra. Kaycee, why didn't you warn me?" he added, addressing the spider-like droid.

"Subject identify as designation-Ankerra." KC-17 responded in it's irritating singsong voice. "Subject-Ankerra status friendly. Non-hostile. Defense protocols not engage. Hello, Ankerra."

"Mm. So how is my favorite sister?" he inquired, a bit suspiciously. His sister looked troubled, for all her false cheer.

"Only sister."

"That too. What's up?"

Ankerra made a halfhearted attempt at an expression of innocence. "What, can't a girl drop by to see her brother? It's been a while."

"'I'd rather wait to talk to you in person.'" he mimicked, quoting her message. "Sounds important to me. Either someone died, someone's getting married, or you're going to be an aunt. Or some combination of the three."

"Maybe I just busted my armor." she replied evasively, all cheerfulness gone.

She was a terrible liar. "That wouldn't drag you out here, unless you had other reasons too." he eyed his sister cautiously. "Please tell me you're not pregnant. I'd have to kneecap the bastard." he said, only half-jokingly.

That startled a bark of laughter out of her. "I am not!" Her face fell. "It's a long story, Tam. Got a chair?"

"Inside." He jerked his head to a door. His home was sparse in furniture, most of it beat up and secondhand. Almost every flat surface was covered in bits of technology, vivisected computers and eviscerated engines. Ankerra dropped into a worn but comfortable chair.

"Dad and Kas are dead."

She couldn't look him in the eye, she found. Instead, she fixed her gaze on his helmet, sitting on the table, apparently in the midst of being upgraded or repaired repaired. Rust brown, with blazes of red and gold, it was a pilot's helmet, with fittings for external life support and a wider visor to see through. And on either side it sported the horned skull emblem of the Mandalorians, sporting wings, and below it, the words _Kyr'am teh Tar. _Death on Wings. The side was opened up, and circuitry spilled out in a manner that she found suggestively gruesome.

"What happened?" he asked hollowly, with the barest note of a plea in his voice, and she looked at him then.

Her headache, a dull throb in her mind for two solid weeks, flared up full force, and she swore she could hear what he wasn't saying. _Please don't let it have been explosives. Please don't let it be tech failure. Please don't let it be something_ I_ could have fixed._

"We got _lazy._ We got lazy and karked up a shabla blue milk run. Job goes off without a hitch, straight up recon. Then we relax and we get jumped in a two-credit cantina handing over the goods." Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath. "They weren't even shooting at us, ner vod, and we were dead before we could draw. They were shooting at the shabla hut'uun of a Jetii we were dealing with. And he ran." she spat bitterly, slamming her fists on the table. "They didn't care about us, or the job. We were kriffing collateral damage! Five minutes later and it wouldn't have been our problem."

She fell silent, blinking back threatening tears, and fixed again on the helmet. She remembered what the woman at the landing zone had called him, and suddenly, she wanted to laugh. It was so absurd. _His family disowns him for forgetting what it means to Mandalorian, but what do these outsiders call him? _

"Did you get them, or do we have hunting to do?" He said suddenly, cold and vicious as a vibroblade's edge.

"Killed them all, brother. Me and the Jetii killed them all. Four for me, he got a half that. He got the leader though. Wanted to kill him, too. It was all his fault." Then she started to cry. Tam could only stare, not sure what to do. Ankerra Ordo didn't cry. She hadn't since they were small. "Dammit, Tam, it was the same guy!" she continued, sobbing. "The same karking guy, what were the odds? The same smuggler who found me and dropped me with Dad and Uncle. I could have killed him. For just a second, he was down. But I wasn't a..."

Something soft collided with the side of her head. "What the hell?" she said with surprise, looking at the object as though it was an alien organism.

"It always used to calm you down when you were a kid." he said gruffly, with an apologetic nod to the stuffed bantha he'd thrown. She managed a weak chuckle and squeezed it tightly.

"Where did you even _find_ this thing?" she asked, her voice muffled by the newly reacquired Eluis. He shrugged sheepishly.

"It was still in one of the lockers on the _Scarlet Ribbons_ when I left. I never throw out my own junk, let alone other people's."

"You still with Hanuu?" She asked, forcibly changing the subject. Tam winced at the mention of his girlfriend.

"No. We split not long after... after I left."

"Let me guess. She said it was her or _Scarlet_..."

"Ha, ha, but no. A farm world didn't suit her, she got bored."

"Which brings me to my next question..." she said with a slight smile. Her control was back in place, and if it weren't for the redness around her eyes and the child's toy clutched in her hands, Tam wouldn't have believed he'd seen it. "What the hell are you doing here, ner vod?"

Tam shrugged. "It's quiet. And it's nice to fix things that aren't meant to kill people." he replied simply.

"You're bored out of your skull." Ankerra accused teasingly.

"Not really." He sounded serious, and a little bit surprised.

"Well, there goes Mission Objective Number Two." She shook her head. She would never understand her brother.

"Objective Number Two?" he echoed.

"Yeah, knock some sense into you. I guess I was hoping I could drag you home." She admitted.

"They wouldn't have me back. Are you going home for the memorial?" he continued before she could protest, and instantly regretted his choice of subjects.

"No. I... can't." she said, a touch of a creak in her voice. After a long pause, she added "Think I could crash here for a while?"

"I don't see why not." He chuckled. "There's a bounty on some of the larger predators around here, as well. And Kaycee and I can always use a hand- I know you, ner vod, and you can't sit still for long."

"I guess I'll stay here until something happens. I could use a vacation." she joked.

"Ankerra, if you're waiting for something to happen on Concord Dawn, you and your grandchildren will be waiting a very long time." Tam responded with a smile and a shake of his head.

Ankerra smiled back, but it was bittersweet. "People always say things like that. Then I show up." And then she left to collect her bag, still lying in the dirt in front of the shop.

**End Part III**


	5. Part IV: The Mandalorians

**Author's Note: **Rating bumped up to T in accordance with Ankerra's smoking habit. And since I don't type accents, it's worth a note: both Ankerra and her brother speak with Australian/New Zealander accents like Jengo Fett's, Ankerra's being a shade milder. Damn, this chapter turned out long, but I refuse to break it up.

**Part IV**

**Three Months Later**

Ankerra was starting to think her brother might be right when the shuttle crashed. It hit just outside Himra's ranch in the dead of night while she was hunting kyral, local canoids that had developed a taste for tralodon and nerf. _I have a bad feeling about this, _ she thought as she watched the artificial meteor go down behind a ridge. It _could_ be a routine delivery of equipment that had experienced a malfunction. Could be, but she doubted it.

By the time she got there, any occupants were gone, as were her doubts. The shuttle was of an alien type whose origins she couldn't even guess at, all curves and angles. She made a mental note to drag her brother out here for a look. And more tellingly, parts of the ship had been torn in a way only laser-fire could. The only technical failure here was the engine's inability to function after a direct hit. She didn't dare touch the ship yet- it was still smoldering, for goodness sake. And yet... even as she felt the heat of the shuttle, she felt a cold that chilled her very bones. Cold and hate. She hadn't felt like this since...

Reflexively, she lit a ciggrata and took a drag. She wasn't sure when she picked up the habit, but it always seemed to dull the persistent pains in her head... and the imagined noises that accompanied it. She gave the shuttle a cautious and cursory inspection, then went to wake up Himra (assuming the crash hadn't) and tell him to leave the damn thing alone. She didn't see a single kyral all night- they'd gone to their warrens. Ankerra thought they had the right idea.

Three days passed. Tam was fascinated by the wreck, and dragged part of the weapons array back to his shop. A second shuttle, rather worse for the wear, but of conventional Republic design, arrived. It brought with it a pair of Jedi. They landed in the same spot as Ankerra had, months before. They were met by the very same woman, in fact- Loril, as she was called, was a notorious gossip, and she made it her business to know everything that went on.

"A shuttle went down not far from here three days ago. Know anything about it?" asked one of them, a dark, lean man. His garb was that of a spacer, not a Jedi, but the lightsaber at his belt was unmistakable.

"Hmph. Not surprised. No other reason for the Repuplic to take an interest here," drawled Loril. "You'll want to talk to the Mandalorians, then."

"Mandalorians?" the other questioned in a clipped accent. She was an interesting change from her partner, short and curvy, dark hair contrasting with ivory skin.

"Brother and sister. Girl saw the ship go down, and the boy's got bits of it at his shop."

"So where can we find them?" inquired the dark one.

"He's usually at his shop- just down the way there, keep walking and you can't miss it. As for his sister, who knows?"

"We appreciate your help, madam," said the woman with a polite nod, and they began to walk in the indicated direction.

"Just don't you give either of them any trouble," she called after them, hands on her hips. "They've never caused anyone any worries, in fact they've solved a few."

"Mandalorians..." The woman, whose name was Bastila, muttered, shaking her head as they walked away. "Stranger and stranger."

"Damn straight," replied Atton.

The shop did prove easy enough to find. It was an open front affair, occupied by a man dissembling what looked like part of a laser turret. A recently painted sign hung over the shop read 'Tam Skirata- Repairs'. The man looked up as he came near. He was big, with broad features and brown hair cropped short. He eyed the Jedi warily.

"You are the Mandalorian?" Bastila inquired politely, and the man gave a wry smile.

"I'm Tam Skirata." He replied. "Amazing how much trouble some people have with names."

"I am Bastila Shan, and this is Atton Rand."

"You're here about the crash," It was not a question. "Here's part of it," He added, gesturing to the machine on his worktable, vaguely recognizable as part of a weapons array. He shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it. The capacitors alone-"

"Where did the shuttle go down?" inquired Atton, heading off the engineer's reverie.

"A few klicks outside of town, near one of the outlying ranches. Really, you should talk to my sister. She was the one who found the crash."

"Where can we find her?"

"She's asleep. She works nights, and just got in a few hours ago."

"Could you wake her?" asked Bastila, and Skirata thought she sounded a bit desparate. "This is a matter of utmost importance."

"No need," came a voice from the doorway, and there stood a young and tired woman clad in lavender pajamas patterned in bright pink lizards. "I'm up."

She stood around six feet, but didn't seem unusually tall, being neither hulking nor lanky. She had short, dirty-blonde hair that was heavy on the blonde, and a rather pretty face that was instantly forgettable. She... _dissected_ them with eyes that were hard and gray as duracrete, and her air of mild curiosity acquired something of an edge when she caught sight of Atton Rand.

"Ankerra Ordo." she introduced herself curtly. The surname caught Bastila's attention, but she didn't have time to pursue it.

She frowned. "But your brother..."

"Is named Skirata. It's a long story, don't worry about it," she replied in a tone that forbid further discussion. She had a slight, rolling accent, and her voice possessed the barest hint of a drawl.

"Master Bastila Shan. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. This is-"

"Atton Rand." She finished coldly. "We've met."

Bastila shot a look at Atton that demanded an explanation. He responded with a shug, to which she gave a glare that informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he would tell her the whole story later.

"I assume you know why we are here?"

"Yeah." She sighed heavily, and went back into the house. A short awkward silence later, she was back in full armor, minus helmet, complete with a double vibroblade and a rifle slung over one shoulder. "Follow me, I'll take you out there. Tam, stay here, alright?"

"The ship went down three days ago, around Oh-two-hundred," she continued as they walked. "I got there maybe 15 minutes after it hit. No survivors, no corpses, no tracks. Anything else you needed?" She yawned. Atton noticed that, unless he was much mistaken, this armor had a different chest piece than what she'd worn on Nar Shaada, though still dove-grey with violet markings. It was abbriviated and more fitted, with the midsection being covered by part of a fiber jumpsuit.

"Are you certain there was no one there?" Bastila pressed, and the touch of panic in her voice got Ankerra's attention.

"Not that I saw," She raised a blonde eyebrow. "Could be it was a dummy, meant to lead you on a wild goose chase." She shuddered. "The thing feels _wrong_."

"No! The shuttle was manned-" Bastila started, but Atton cut her off.

"Wrong how?"

"Like..." She hesitated, putting on her helmet. "Like Nar Shaadda wrong." Atton made a noise like he was about to speak, but she continued. "What makes you so sure someone was in it?"

"There was an assassination attempt recently," It was Bastila who spoke, some of her composure regained, but still a bit upset. "It was foiled, but the assassins escaped by taking a hostage- the target's six-year old daughter. We followed them here."

Ankerra stopped cold, and frowned. "Why did you shoot them down if you knew they had a hostage?"

Bastila scowled. "It was not our doing," she snapped. "The shuttle was fired upon by officials from Commenor, who did not know the full extent of the situation."

Ankerra swore under her breath, picking up the pace a bit. "Assuming everyone who got on that shuttle got off, how many are we talking?"

"Half a dozen, minus the girl. And they're very, very good," Atton admitted, the last part grudgingly.

A ghost of a smirk passed over the Mandalorian's face. It might have turned into a full blown grin if a kid's life wasn't an issue. Bastila saw the smile, and unsubtly touched her mind, wondering if this too-convenient ally was in league with the kidnappers. The result was explosive.

Ankerra brought up her vibroblade as though she'd been physically attacked. "Talyc dar'yaim, stay out of my shabla head!" She whirled on her companions, her gray eyes stormy. "You want to know something, Jetii, try the old fashioned way and ask," She glared viciously at Atton even as he shot a look at Bastila. A sharp-edged silence hung in the air before Ankerra turned and kept walking.

"The site is just over this hill," She told them coldly. She hoped they found these chakaare. She was eager for a bit of blood.

The crashed shuttle had lost none of it's malice in the three days since it's violent landing. If anything, it seemed to have gained the eire aura of a tomb now that the fires had died.

"The shuttle was too hot to touch when I got here, so I couldn't check inside right away. When I came back and did, nothing."

Nonetheless, the Jedi inspected every inch of the shuttle. Bastila gave a bitten off cry when she found something Ankerra had missed- a blue ribbon, of the sort a little girl might tie her hair with. But no tracks, no hint of where they might have gone.

"Now what?" Atton asked, voicing their collective thoughts.

"Don't you Jedi have any tricks you can use?"

Atton shook his head. "There are some who might be able to find them. Master Shan and I have no such talents. There are ways of hiding from them in any case."

"Oh, kriff you," Ankerra took a deep breath, removing her helmet. There had to be _something_ left. She was a good hunter. She should be able to find it. She strained her ears and eyes, scanning the clearing. She barely noticed as her breathing fell into a slow, steady pattern.

Suddenly, the world opened up, as though she'd been watching a transmission in black and white, and had it suddenly switch to color. She truly didn't know what it was she did- she'd done it many times when hunting. She'd used it to follow the Ubese on Nar Shaadda. She just listened, as she'd been taught when she was very young.

Bastila's unspoken fears, so uncharacteristic of a Jedi Master, seemed deafening. Atton was quiet- not that there was nothing there, but as though he kept his thoughts tucked away in his kit bag. She ignored them both, and above the dull roar of Bastila's panic and her own beating heart, she could have sworn she heard something heartwrenchingly familiar- a child, frightened and lost and alone. Suddenly, a path unfolded in front of her, a partition in the grass she hadn't seen before.

"I think... this way," she announced. The moment she stopped looking, the world reeled, and she developed a splitting headache.

Atton exchanged a significant glance with Bastila. While she was obviously Force Sensitive, _someone_ had to teach her that. The Jedi followed her in the indicated direction, and Bastila took the direct route, demanding:

"Who trained you, Mandalorian?"

"I have a name, Shan," She replied, casually digging a ciggrata and lighter from her pocket and lighting it. Bastila wrinkled her nose at the smell.

"You're evading."

"Yep. If Ankerra's too long, try Ordo."

"Very well, Miss Ordo. _Someone_ trained you in the ways of the Force."

"That they did."

"Who-"

"Can't you take a hint, Jedi? I don't want to talk about it."

A long silence ensued where the only sounds were footfalls and the swish of Jedi robes and a Mandalorian kama through the grass. Again, Bastila broke the silence with something she'd been wondering since Ankerra introduced herself.

"Miss Ordo, are you by any chance-"

"Mandalore's Helm, not again!"

"My apologies, but I believe you said that if there was something I wished to know, I should 'try the old fashioned way and ask.'"

"You must be the most infuriating woman I've ever met, you know that?" She sighed. "What do you want?"

"Are you, by any chance related to a man named Canderous Ordo?"

Ankerra's face went very, very still.

"How," she asked. "do you know my father?" Her voice was deadly calm, but her eyes flashed with a metallic intensity.

Now that she knew this was Canderous's daughter, Bastila had no trouble seeing the resemblance. "We... traveled together, years ago," That got her a very peculiar look from both Ankerra and Atton, so she clarified. "Seven years ago, we were both traveling in the company of Revan."

Ankerra, her face still stony, inquired. "Do you know where he went after that?"

Bastila shook her head. "No one does. Except, perhaps, Revan. You don't...?"

"I haven't seen my father since I was six. Probably figures I'm dead by now."

The blonde woman put out her cigratta by smashing it on the thigh-piece of her armor, shoved on her helmet, and stomped a few meters ahead. She obviously considered the impromptu interrogation over.

They were approaching a small forest, Ankerra still following a path invisible to the others. It would make sense though, Atton thought, for the assassins to flee there, for the woods weren't nearly as exposed as the prairie. She led them on a winding trek through the trees, and just when the Jedi were almost certain they were lost, Ankerra held up her hand for them to stop. There was a glimmer of firelight visible through the trees.

The predicted six men sat around a fire. All of them sported minor cuts and buises, one had his arm in a sling. They were, she noted, garbed similarly to the man who killed her kin on Nar Shaadda. The girl sat between them, shivering in the cold, her hands tied. Ankerra started to gesture that two of them should go around to the other sides of the camp, but Bastila would have none of it. She charged through the underbrush, freezing one of them with her powers before they had a chance to move. Atton exchanged a beleaguered look with Ankerra- or at least, shot one at her, as her expression hidden by her helmet, and they followed her into the clearing.

Almost instantly, Bastila's rash actions were explained- the child's cry of "Mama!" were audible even oven the noise of the fight. The wounded assassin grabbed the little girl, and fled into the woods.

For Ankerra, the assassins seemed to move impossibly slow, and again, her environment opened into a larger world. Half a dozen beating hearts resolved into a staccato rhythm while the hum of lightsabers harmonized with the sharp clanging melody of conventional blades. Ankerra did not consider herself a dancer, but this was just another variation on a song she knew very, very well.

She dispatched one of them almost casually in a single swift motion, and didn't miss a beat as she brought one end of her double blade up to meet that of a second assassin. Their swords entwined like serpents, and Ankerra found herself grinning like a madwoman. His blade trapped, she brought her left foot up to his head in a roundhouse kick, knocking him off balance.

But then, in the distance, she heard Bastila's daughter cry out, and rather than press her advantage, she left the clearing and ran in the direction of the sound. The Jedi, after all, could take care of themselves.

She caught up with them at the base of a large oak tree. Apparently, the girl had wrenched his wounded arm, and he had subsequently decided she wasn't worth the trouble. Ankerra was no hero but, someone who threatened little girls with vibroblades was a whole new level of scum. He barely flinched at the press of her sword on the back of his neck.

"Turn around slowly."

"You'd kill me in front of the kid?" He inquired, clearly not believing she would.

"You're not dealing with the Jedi, scum. Kid, close your eyes." She obeyed, and the assassin's eyes widened as he realized he was dead. Ankerra savored the expression and slit his throat. She rolled him over to hide the wound. No child deserved nightmares of blood at that age.

The girl cowered from her against the tree. Ankerra removed her helmet- it _was _intimidating, and that was at least half the point. She went down on one knee putting her at eye level with the kid. She looked to be about six or seven, and had her mother's dark locks and large grey eyes.

"What's your name, kid?" Ankerra inquired gently.

"Helena." she replied timidly, placing the emphasis on the second syllable.

Ankerra glanced back longingly towards the clearing- she couldn't see the fight, but she could hear it. She wanted to go back, but she couldn't leave the girl, and certainly couldn't take her. She made her decision. "Listen, ki- Helena, I'm going to take you home. My home. We'll wait for your mom there, okay?"

Helena's peered around Ankerra, and she followed her gaze to the dead assassin.

"I hit him over the head," she lied. "Pretty funny, that he thought I'd kill him. Let's go, okay?"

Helena Shan nodded mutely, and Ankerra gathered her up in her arms. Now that she was out of the fight, her skull throbbed with renewed intensity. Helena was mercifully silent until they came within sight of the settlement, when suddenly she started to cry.

"No- what's wrong, kid? C'mon, you're safe now."

"What if she don't come?"

"Your mom?" Ankerra took the sniffle as an affirmative. "She'll come, don't worry. You should have seen how upset she was that you were gone, kid."

"What if she can't? What if she's hurted?"

Ankerra experienced a sudden wave of deja vu. She knew that particular terror all too well.

"She'll be fine, Helena. She's tough. Besides, she's got Atton- you know Atton? He's helping her too. Just don't worry about it."

It was a very long wait, during which Helena learned the basics of both pazaak and the Mandalorian game of cu'bikad, which involved more sharp objects than the child's mother would probably been comfortable with, heard an abundance of stories from Ankerra and her brother (most of which were made up on her spot), and learned a lullaby. Ankerra was fond of children, having many adopted nieces, nephews, and cousins, but was nonetheless thankful when her mother returned. Atton and Bastila, intact as Ankerra had predicted, found the two sitting in Tam's shop, Helena clutching a rather bedraggled stuffed bantha toy and listening avidly as Ankerra related a Mandalorian children's tale.

"...And Mandalore took his sword, and with a single swipe, cut off the dragon's head!"

"Mama!" Helena practically leapt up to embrace her mother. Ankerra looked away, feeling as though she intruded. Her gaze fell on Atton. The two locked gazes for a long moment before Atton spoke.

"My offer still stands," he told her. "The Order needs everyone it can get."

"Go to hell, Rand," She told him gruffly, but the statement lacked venom. Someone tugged on her kama, and she looked down to Helena, attempting to return Eluis.

"Keep it, little one," she said with a crooked smile. "It's lucky."

Life on Concord Dawn returned to its normal monotony afterwards, but Ankerra found no peace. She was plagued by splitting headaches, fleeting glimpses of voices and sounds that weren't there. It was as though she had opened a door in her mind and found herself wholly unable to close it.

Her brother thought she should take Atton up on his offer, as it seemed it was Jetii nonsense that was causing this. Ankerra refused out of hand, and in the mean time she got worse and worse. All this came to a peak when she woke up in a bunk on a ship with a headache that was equal parts hangover and delerium. She found a note taped to the bunk above, written in her brother's scrawl.

_Ankerra-_

_You're being stupid. Or maybe just a good Mandalorian, I never could tell the difference. Since you won't admit you need help, I've taken matters into my own hands. I drugged your drink, and now you're on the _Scarlet, _on route to Coruscant. Kaycee is piloting, and he's been ordered not to take you anywhere else until you go there. He has the usual commands set up, and your codes haven't changed. I can't make you go to the Temple, but I think you should. Losing your mind would be a waste of a good fighter. Whatever you decide, keep _Scarlet_. She's wasted on Concord Dawn._

_-Tam_

_P.S. There are painkillers in the footlocker._

Ankerra cursed at the deaf and unsympathetic bulkheads.

**End Part IV**


	6. Part V: The Jedi

**Author's Note:** Sorry this one took so long, my brain hit a bump. I lied. There's going to be an epilogue after this. And also, I apparently write better for whacked out people when I have a fever. 103.2 F. Family record, woo! Super duper ninja thanks for anyone who reviewed/will review, extra for people who already have.

**Disclaimer: **This product is not meant for human consumption. In case of ingestion, call paramedics immediately.

**Part V**

**Coruscant, Two weeks later**

She trudged down the loading ramp, silently cursing every footstep. She _hated_ Coruscant. It was Nar Shaddaa with delusions of grandeur. The planet was only a fraction of the reason for her displeasure, though- she was still pissed at the stunt her brother pulled. She'd be damned if she was going to the Jedi, but she despised space travel and planned to crash in a real bed for a few days before taking off. She was thinking Ord Mantell, or maybe join up with her other brothers. They'd been on Onderon last she heard, checking out a rumor that their people were gathering in that sector. Her headaches would pass if she stuck them out, she was sure. As she stepped out of the_Scarlet Ribbons_, she was overwhelmed by noise, only a fraction of it in her ears. Hope/despair/joy/anger/loss/fear/hate/love/pain. She flinched visibly, and lit her last cigratta. Taking a long drag, she relaxed as the emotions of those in the spaceport faded to a dull buzz. Shaking her head to clear it, Ankerra Ordo headed over to a public information terminal and looked up a cheap hostel near the spaceport.

She would have to take an airbus, a revelation which brought a twitch of a scowl to her face. Bad enough she couldn't wear her armor- it was better at attracting trouble than a sign saying "Pick a fight with me!" in glowing neon letters, especially in the heart of the Republic- but public transportation was something that kicked her paranoia into full gear. Oh, how she hated civilizaton. Give her a nice backwater with places she could _walk_ to any day. She felt naked in the fiber jumpsuit, one she normally wore under heavier protection, despite being one of the better-armored sentients currently present. She scanned the area for the exit and-

Lost. The feeling punched though the grey t'bac induced haze in her mind like a blaster bolt. She reflexively looked for the source of the 'noise'... and settled on a little girl not far from her. A wide-eyed, nervous thing with dark brown hair falling into her face. One that, Ankerra realized, she'd seen before. Not crying, but she looked like the waterworks were about to start. She was clutching an even more familiar battered bantha toy, the saddest thing you ever saw. No parents in sight. Ankerra wavered. It was probably nothing, she told herself. Any minute now, Bastila (or whoever the girl's father was) would come rushing through, exclaiming "There you are, darling!" and sweep her off. But then Helena Shan made eye contact. A little bit of hopeful recognition sparked in her eyes, and Ankerra crumbled. Her maternal instincts demanded she at least make sure the little girl was alright. Damned if she was going to leave a kid left alone in the spaceport.

"Lost again, kid?" Ankerra called, closing the distance between them. Her chin went up in a stubborn pout, and Ankerra was reminded strongly of her mother.

"I'm running away." Deja vu all over again. This girl seemed to remind Ankerra of herself more than was healthy.

"Uh-huh. Any particular reason, or just a notion you had?" Ankerra said, walking over to a nearby bench, and jerking her head for Helena to follow.

"My mom doesn't like me anymore." Ankerra raised a sharp eyebrow.

"Mmm. So where are you going?"

"Ummm..."

"Thought so. It's nice there this time of year, I hear."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Need a ride, kid?" She'd just ditch her at the Jedi Temple. Her mother was a Jedi, the runt was probably an apprentice there. No need for her to stay.

"Umm..."

"I'll take you somewhere safe."

"Alright." Mandalore's Helm, the kid was gullible. It was lucky Ankerra had found her instead of some chaakaryc scum. She tried not think of how equally foolish she'd been at four years older, letting some card shark on Nar Shaadda drag her off.

A short taxi ride later, they were at the Temple and Helena was none too pleased once she realized where they were going.

"No!" Helena remained glued to her seat, arms crossed in a miniature portrait of bad temper. "I won't go!" Was she actually used to these little fits working? If so, Ankerra had no respect for the girl's parents.

"Yeah, you will." Ankerra paid the cab driver, then grabbed the wriggling girl by her waist, collected the toy -Ankerra couldn't believe she'd kept it, though deep down she'd have been insulted if she hadn't- and slung Helena over her shoulder. "Your mom adores you, kid. No matter what little spat you've had."

Helena went limp. "She hates me because I'll never be a Jedi."

"Nonsense. Stick it out, kid. You'll do fine." Ankerra was chucking platitudes right and left, and she knew it.

"No! I can't do the Force thing so they won't let me."

"Oh." Ankerra stopped. Were it even remotely possible, she would have happily traded places with the girl. "Pfsh. There's plenty of worthwhile things to be 'sides a Jedi. Soldier, for instance. Or a doctor. Believe me, everyone's always happy to see a medic."

"But Mother..."

"Will love you no matter what. That's what moms _do, _kid. Now, if I put you down, will you behave?" Ankerra took her silence as a yes and plopped her down. "Let's go, your mother will have worked herself into a state. She just got you back after all."

The Jedi Temple had obviously once been quite impressive, all steps and spires. It still was, but it also exuded an aura of being tired and somehow... lonely. Several years of neglect was apparent in the peeling paint, and it seemed to her that this quiet and almost abandoned cathedral belonged on busy Cosuscant about as much as she did.

She managed to find the public entrance, locked and deserted. It stood to reason, after all, there were very few Jedi left here. She rang the doorchime and waited. The place gave her uncomfortable chills. It was not the cold awfulness she had felt before, rather, the air in this place seemed thick with a sort of... electricity.

"Hello?" The door opened to reveal a young Twi'lek woman in clothing that was much more revealing than most Jedi attire.

"Hi. Um. I think someone here lost a kid. Do you know where I can find Master Bastila Shan?"

She blinked. Then it seemed as though she'd tripped some kind of mental switch for her. "Oh! This must be Helena. Master Shan is not here at the moment. Come in, and I will contact her, Miss..?"

"Ordo." She followed her down the hallway, not nearly as claustrophobic as most Coruscant architecture. Slowly though, she had the strangest feeling. She felt short of breath, as though the air was too hot or humid to breath properly. She had the sense of drowning in nothing at all, and the world exploded.

_Some of it was her blood, and some had stained the Temple floors since time immemorial and the swirls and patterns formed shapes and pictures and some belonged to her and some were the marks a thousand visitors had etched into the Temple walls and she was four years old and her father loomed over her, teaching her to shoot a rifle at a rosebush and red flowers exploded in red light and a twisted man turned his red 'saber on his master and two young apprentices did something they weren't supposed to and a Jedi left the hall and did not return and it happened a thousand times over and she climbed trees with a dark-haired girl who she believed could do anything._

Everyone in the temple heard her scream, though the sound did not carry beyond the hall. The woman thumbed her comlink.

"Master! There's a medical emergency in the north entrance hallway-"

"Who?" came the tinny response.

"A visitor, she just fell over thrashing all of a sudden."

"I'm on my way."

"The matter is closed. The Jedi Order will not go to war!" muttered Ankerra, curling tightly into a ball. The padawan looked at her nervously. Cautiously, she reached out to her and grabbed her wrist.

"_The Jedi Order _must_ go to war, Master Atris, if the Republic is to survive!" snapped the small dark-haired man, his pale green eyes flashing. "I've told you, the Mandalorians will sweep across the Rim. I can tell you how they'll do it-"_

She pulled back sharply. What was the woman _seeing?_ Her master arrived then, a lithe and muscular redhead who appeared about as much of a Jedi as her apprentice. Mira Kiskill bent over the Mandalorian's prone form and touched two fingers to her neck.

"Careful, master, she's having visions or hallucinations of some sort."

_"...And if you will not take action, then-"_

"Yeah, looks like." the former bounty hunter said unflappably. "Right, Kali, call Mical. Tell him we need him in the infirmary. We're going to carry her there." Mira then noticed Helena, small and frightened. "Come with us, kid, and then we'll sort where you're supposed to be." she said, not unkindly while her Padawan made the call.

She hoisted Ankerra's upper body, Kali grabbed her legs and...

_...She was five and tiny, and she sat comfortably in a gnarled tree in front of weathered and unassuming house, and she knew she did so often. She had a sick feeling in her stomach, as she watched a speeder race across the dusty ground, though she felt that somehow she would normally be thrilled. And then only one grey-armored figure stepped out of the speeder, and her heart plummeted. There were a thousand explanations for why, but she somehow knew it was the very worst as the armored giant of a man approached her tree. He removed his helmet, revealing a weathered face and dark hair greying at the temples._

_"An'ika, will you come down?" she shook her head and her father sighed. His eyes were bright with tears, and that was wrong- he never cried. "An'ika, darling, I'm afraid... your mother isn't coming home. She died, Ana."_

_She had the strangest feeling she'd already known._

"Set her down on the bed, gently. What happened? Who is she?" chattered the Coruscanti accent of Master Mical Drayan. Mira blinked. She couldn't recall the trip to the infirmary at all. She frowned at the young woman as they settled her on a cot. That vision looked to have been a memory of the girl's, the one before almost certainly wasn't.

Kali answered. "She's a visitor. Somehow she found Helena Shan-" she gestured to the little girl "and brought her here. I let them in, and suddenly she collapsed in the hall, screaming and thrashing. Then she curled up in a ball, and when I touched her, I.. saw things." she continued as Mical ran Ankerra over with a scanner.

"I don't _want _you to go." Ankerra muttered sullenly.

"Some lung damage. Minor chemical imbalances- a smoker, I'd guess, but otherwise a healthy teenage girl. Nothing that would explain hallucinations. I'm going to take a blood sample. Could be drugs." he rolled up her sleeve, stuck a syringe in, and was thrust halfway across the temple and back over a decade into one of the Jedi personal quarters.

_"If the Council won't do anything, we'll act on our own!" The dark haired man shot a roguish smile at his companion, a bald young man with pale blue tattoos. "After all, Mal, since when has breaking rules bothered us?"_

_"This is different!" He protested. "It's not like charging off to rescue someone when we're told to stay put, or lying to the Council when it doesn't do any harm. This is _big._"_

_"But it is, Mal! It _is_ just like that! If we'll rescue a few people but stand by while millions are slaughtered, we're as hypocritical as those old fogeys in there!"_

_"But Ren- what can two Jedi do?" 'Mal' said hesitantly._

_"You think it's just us? Jaret Sigah, Raasi Myr- even dear Juli is chafing at the bit. I can name a dozen more who think this is wrong. All they need is someone to lead the charge, and-"_

Mical swayed on his feet, and withdrew the syringe. "I don't know of any drugs that are _catching._" he murmured, placing the vial into one of the machines, setting it for a full-spectum analysis. That woman was almost _certainly _Revan, real as could be, but the when would make this girl a small child when it happened, so it couldn't be a memory... The machine _pinged_, and Mical frowned slightly at the results. "Well, that explains a little. Look at her midichlorian count."

"So she's having genuine visions?"

"So it would seem. Related to the Temple, perhaps? The one I saw was of Revan." But Kali shook her head.

"One of the ones I saw was in the Council chamber. But the other one wasn't even on Coruscant."

"Hmm. Perhaps a memory. I'm going to give her a sedative for the moment, until we know what to do with her."

He rolled up her sleeve, ignoring the ghostly image he glimpsed as he administered the drug- blood on snow.

Ankerra dreamed, but they were not her dreams. She had the uncomfortable feeling of wearing someone else's skin as she walked through foreign hallways with the familiarity of someone who had been born and raised there. She walked in the Temple when it was new and clean, and left it for memories of wide skies and gold plains, only to watch as they were burned to ash. She saw her sister and her brother, and they asked her why she'd killed them, after all, they were _vode… _And she wanted to go to them but someone was holding her down…

"Steady miss, calm down-" Mical muttered to the thrashing Ankerra, trying to hold her down so she didn't harm herself.

"I thought you sedated her?" said Kali nervously. The empathic Twi'lek was clearly uncomfortable here, even more so since her master had gone to see about getting Helena home.

"Unpredictable creatures, Jedi. I expected her to be out for a few more hours at least. Open that cupboard, farthest left on the bottom. There's a neural dampener there, maybe that will stop her visions."

Ankerra groped, and to the immense misfortune of everyone in the room, managed to grasp a laser scalpel sitting on the infirmary counter. Mical was blissfully unaware of this until a stabbing pain in his arm forced him to release his patient. Ankerra brought her feet up to her chest and kicked hard, sending Mical sprawling across the room. His head connected with a metal bedframe with an unhealthy thud, and he didn't get back up.

She unsteadily pulled herself out of bed, and surged at Kali in a half controlled lurch. The Twi'lek fell under the weight of the much heavier Mandalorian, and found herself with Ankerra's purloined medical implement at her throat.

"Vaii ner vod? Where is she, Jetii?" Ankerra's bright grey eyes were glassy and unfocused. But one could not simply attack someone in the Jedi Temple and not expect _any _of the Jedi to know- particularly not those for whom sight was their area of expertise.

Master Visas Marr had noted the panic and commotion in the infirmary, and sensed a presence with which she was not familiar. Upon entering the room, she saw-

_The woman walked like a dancer and gaped like a wound. She strode through the temple trailing blood, and no one dared try and save her. They looked away, or saw her and swore she should be dead. She stood there before five righteous old men and women with all the pride of a conquered queen, and told them that the awful things that had vivisected her soul and stained her with blood were absolutely necessary. She wore her tangled red hair like a tiara and her tattered Jedi robes like finery. She terrified them, and they told her to leave, like frightened children who wanted the Bad Thing gone. She looked at them one last time with dead eyes, thrust her blue lightsaber into the central pillar, and walked away._

-exactly what was wrong. She knew what it was Ankerra saw. She knew that woman, and that event, though details like red hair and blue lightsabers were meaningless to the sightless Jedi.

"Tell me where my sister is, or the Twi'lek is gone." hissed Ankerra. Visas reached out, and wrapped the young woman in the Force- a wall, shielding her from the impressions of her surroundings. The effect was almost instantaneous. Her eyes cleared, and the tight stormy knot that was Ankerra's impression in the Force cleared somewhat. The scalpel clattered to the floor.

"Oh, shab."

**End Part V**


	7. Epilogue

**Author's Note:** W00t! My first finished chapter story. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, helped, and/or listened to me ramble. I solemnly swear I will never ship Ankerra and Atton, btw. He's got a FemExile his own age.

**Disclaimer: **Either you've caught on by now, or you're very, very sloooooow.

**Epilogue**

"Force impressions? I'm sorry, ma'am, but could I have that once more, in Basic? It's been a long time since I had to think about any of this mystic stuff." Ankerra wore an expression of fear mixed with humiliation, like a child who had accidentally broken their mother's antique vase.

The Mandalorian, now equipped with a neural dampening headband, sat in a chair outside the rooms the renewed Jedi had claimed as a sort of office, while Master Shan tried to decide exactly what to do with her. She hadn't even had a chance to apologize to the frightened Kali.

"Events leave imprints on the places where they occurred, like footprints in the sand. The actions of ordinary people are shallow, and easily washed away. But the actions of a Force Sensitive- or where the fates of many were united, like a battle field- are more… permanent." Explain Visas Marr calmly, with the air of one who had done so many times before.

"And you're saying I can see these… footprints?"

"All Jedi can, to a degree. But your natural talents appear to be particularly strong in this area, yes."

"So how does this click with what happened earlier?"

"The Temple has a sense of history to it like few other places in the galaxy. It has been occupied by millions of Jedi over thousands of years. And you are a warrior, used to being aware of your surroundings, I'd wager. When you entered, you lacked the control to close your thoughts to these impressions, and your mind was overwhelmed."

"So how do I make it stop?"

"You cannot, without external assistance such as the device you are wearing now. However, you can learn to keep yourself from being swamped by them. In fact, you may wish to develop these senses further. To be able to clearly see what has been- it is quite the asset."

"Save the recruitment speech, madam Jedi. I'm Mandalorian, and we fight without magic tricks. Besides- I've only been here a little while, and you seem to have some pretty colorful characters- no offense- but I doubt your Order really wants a Jetiyc Mando'ade. This vision osik hasn't left me any choice but to stick around- but I'm only staying long enough to make this… thing" she waggled her fingers at her head. "not a problem."

At that moment, they were approached by a man who was beginning to become a familiar sight to Ankerra. Atton Rand trotted down the hallway looking vaguely beleaguered pausing to look at her with surprise.

"Hey! Don't tell me you decided to accept my offer."

"Don't worry. I won't, 'cause I didn't." Ankerra drawled acidly. "I suffered from a catastrophic loss of other options."

Atton gave her an infuriating smirk. "Whoever you get stuck with will have his work cut out for him. I have to go, Master Shan wants to speak with me about something. But good luck." He trotted into the office. Ankerra glanced at Visas, who wore a knowing smile she found just a bit unsettling. Muffled voices could be heard beyond the door, then-

"Apprentice!? What do you mean, apprentice?" bellowed Atton. Bastila's reply was muffled, but Atton's response to it was not.

"And there's a reason for that, Shan! I don't know anything about teaching-" He was cut off sharply. Visas excused herself politely, and the door opened in time for Ankerra to catch the final words of the conversation. "…end badly, don't say I didn't warn you."

Atton froze when he caught sight of her, suddenly looking embarrassed. He'd clearly forgotten she was in earshot. Ankerra put on her politest pazaak face, the one she used for talking to prospective employers.

"I take it I have been stuck with you, then?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to show you the ropes, as long as you're here."

"Well, I don't plan on being here long, so you'll only have to deal with me a little while… sir." She wasn't about to bow and scrape and call him Master. He smiled like he knew something she didn't.

"We'll see. In the meantime, there's no shortage of empty rooms, so we'll drag whatever things you've brought into one of them."

"My things are back at the dock, on my ship, sir."

"Yours?"

"My brother's, sir, on extended loan."

"We'll see about moving that into the Temple hangar too, then."

"Yes sir."

"And Ankerra?"

"Yes sir?"

"You don't have to call me sir."

"Yes sir."

**FIN**


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